Hazy
by so contagiously
Summary: They'd grasped at something that was nothing so many times before, why not do it together?


Honestly, she didn't know where it started. Maybe it was when he told her Ashley wasn't coming back all summer and that they had decided to just be friends. Maybe it was when it dawned at her that Sean was never coming back, and that his smell was finally gone from his old hoodie he let her borrow completely. She swore she'd keep it forever, but she couldn't do it any more. She wasn't stupid enough to throw it away. Oh, no. She tucked it away and swore to never look at it again. Along with his pictures, and everything else she had found that he had owned.

Yeah, she had been crazy about him. She still was. But that was the past.

It really started around that time, it's true. When two beat up pairs of converses made their way to her doorstep to tell her the bad news. The day she had set out to do something important with her time, like engrave some marks into the fragile skin on her arm. No one knew. No, no one. She didn't tell a soul. That was her secret, and who was there to tell? Going on with the story- that day, they planned it out. So perfectly, so full proof, it was so opaque to everyone but themselves.

Their tongues would dance with each other every so often, but nights were usually spent talking about what was going on. Finally, she had someone to talk to and someone to care about that wasn't going to leave her. Why? Because, he wasn't really there. Sure, she could touch him, any part of him she wanted, but they didn't have feelings for each other. Oh no, none at all. They never wanted to get married or wanted to say 'I love you' and mean it or say it privately at all.

Those days were always hazy for her. That's what she called them. Hazy. Hurt and Crazy. Yeah, that's what they were. They both needed a leg to stand on, and they had no one else. Why not hold on to eachother? They'd grasped at something that was nothing so many times before, why not do it together?

He didn't have feelings for her that way. She began to be his best friend, but she never proved to be anything else. The days that they'd dance, pressed up against each other, hips rolling, it was for show. He thought maybe she pretended that he was someone else. Someone she wanted. Sean. Yeah, he knew she loved Sean. But they weren't real, remember?

Things are probably seeming weird to you right now. They were the perfect unreal couple. They concocted a plan to pretend to be together, when in real life it was all for show. They faked it. Together. They were best friends pretending to be blissfully in love, only because it was easiest that way. Acting keeps your mind off real life. Her life was starting to be a 24/7 act. She liked it that way.

When Ashley called, saying she was never coming back, he cried. Yeah, you heard me. Bawled his eyes out. Never wanted to leave his room and told the world his 'girlfriend' had gotten into a fight with him. Eventually, he had to swallow it when she was bombarded with questions and fear and paranoia of their secret being revealed washed over them. He needed this. Something so fake, so nothing, so something that wasn't there, had become his life. So much of his life that it started to become real, and not only did he realize this, she did, as well.

That's when things weren't going as well as they had started to. One night, in the pouring rain, she showed up on his doorstep, being drenched in the rain. Her hair curly and wet and her eyeliner running all over her face. She was crying, and she was wearing _the_ sweatshirt. The guy she really loved. His sweatshirt. The one she had tucked away until he would return.

That must've been his wakeup call.

He ushered her in and she sat down on the couch. He sat down beside her, leaning back and watching her as she tried to find the words, picking at her fingernails as if the secret message was tucked inside. However, it took her a long time for the words to come out. And when they did, they were slow and slurred and painful. "He's back." had never felt like such awful words, but it was true, at that moment, they were.

She didn't love him. Oh, no. No, she never had, and she never would. Honestly, she didn't want to lose the act, didn't want to lose the best friend she had, didn't want to lose the thing she had built her life upon but was now crumbling at her feet.

"You and me.. we're still going to be friends. Always. I just.. I love him, you know. Love him. I love you, but I'm not in love with you, excuse my use of a cliched phrase. I need you. My whole world has revolved around you when I had no one else but we both know that relationship was so fake at first and then it started to be real beause we were living a lie that was so perfect, we didn't want reality any more. I can't fall in love with you, because, I love him. And I need him. And he's everything to me and when he came I ran out the door and to your house just so I could clear things up and I would understand if you hate me forever and--" she had been pacing the garage, over and over, just walking, sopping wet, leaving little wet puddles on the floor.

"I could never hate you." his voice was raspy and cold and quiet, and he pulled her down beside him. And that's when it happened. They kissed.

It wasn't fake this time, oh no. It was real. Battling for power as the two of them tried to feel out what was there. And by then they both knew that there was nothing but a hollow victory in commiting the perfect crime on the whole world, and themselves.

"Nothing." he said.

"Nothing at all." she added, hugging him, but never smiling. She walked out the door, and so did the charade. And even though he wanted to reach out and grab her, he didn't want to at all.

All he wanted was to be fake again. She had promised him a charade until the boy she loved came home, and now that he was back, the silent contract was ripped apart and scattered on the floor.

The next day, he walked through the hallway, and there they were. He was carrying her into the school and laughing, smiling. She was smiling, brown eyes glittering in such excitement. He knew she was in love, and he knew he was, too. But swallowing something fake is so much harder than swallowing something real. These words you won't understand until you realize them yourselves. For the most important things we learn, we learn ourselves, and are not told.

Ellie Nash would never love Craig Manning, but to everyone else, she sure as hell had.

chapter two- ' ' So kiss me like you did ' ' --

**She never knew about back then, seeing as the past didn't matter to her. But now that she thought about it, there were gaps in their stories, people who remained nameless who had so much in common. Confrontation could mean disaster, while he stood on the sidelines and watched her battle a fight he was no longer a part of. He wished he could just jump in and help her, but she was a nothing that had never been but to the public, and yet she stayed in his heart now... and that's when his girl came back.**


End file.
